Harry Potter and the Land of Absconditus
by Balbina
Summary: A seventh year fic. Ch. 3 is up. Number Four, Privet Drive is attacked during the night. Feedback appreciated. There are bk. 6 spoilers, so beware. On hiatus, but probably won't be continued.
1. A Fishy Message

**Chapter One:**

A Fishy Message

The transition between daytime and evening was lost in the thick, impenetrable fog that now wrapped itself menacingly around Little Whinging and surrounding towns. Thicker than a vicious snowstorm, the vapor pressed itself coldly against the windows of silent homes, filling the streets in a flood of icy cloud that made it downright reckless for anyone to go driving. Therefore the inhabitants of the houses had been forced to stay indoors all day, calling in sick to work and making sure that the local schools would excuse their children's absences. It had been like this for an entire week; the fog hadn't lifted even an inch from when it first settled Sunday evening and was giving no sign of letting up even now. In fact, so much of the town's work force was being kept from their jobs that the productivity of Little Whinging had been cut down by more than half, and on some blocks the power had even gone out.

For those who could still watch the television, they knew that the Prime Minister had just declared a state of emergency in collaboration with the Surrey County Council (whose members, rumor had it, had been camping out in the county hall chambers). Even now, while families were being forced to dig through their cupboards in search of forgotten cans of soup, emergency response teams were being put together. Their job would be to deliver basic food supplies and blankets to the neighborhoods if this weather failed to abate before long, but it was anyone's guess as to how they would find the individual homes without getting lost in the fog like everyone else

This was the atmosphere that Harry Potter found himself in, just three days shy of his seventeenth birthday and coming of age. So far, Number Four, Privet Drive still had electricity, but it wasn't very stable. Maybe twice an hour it would flicker off, something that caused Aunt Petunia to shriek with fear and start twiddling madly with the television knobs in the dark, as though determined that one of them would signal for an electrical workman to pop out of the screen and make the lights come back on. Meanwhile, Uncle Vernon was drinking himself raw with brandy, and Harry's cousin Dudley was scooting frantically from chair to chair, trying to avoid the wrath of the new bulldog. The dog, dubbed Chomper, was a gift from Uncle Vernon's sister, Aunt Marge, and was intended as a guard dog in case one of those "madmen in cloaks", as Uncle Vernon had put it, decided to pay a visit. So far, however, all Chomper had shown was a liking for biting Dudley's shoes off his feet, to Dudley's dismay and Harry's great amusement.

At least that was how it had been when Harry was downstairs last, which admittedly was a while ago. Currently he was hovering over the toilet in the upstairs bathroom, bending in such a way that he could look right into the porcelain tank, its lid having been removed. The tank was dark; he had to struggle to find what he was looking for as he peered through the shallow water that pooled inside.

"Okay," he muttered, and he lifted the wand in his right hand, so that it pointed directly into the watery depths. "_Lumos_."

Immediately a silvery glow illuminated the inside of the tank, glinting dully off the water. Now Harry could properly see the mechanics beneath the surface. He pushed aside a floating rubber ball with the tip of his wand, and beneath it saw the thing he was looking for: a small flapper that Harry assumed was what allowed the water in the tank to rush into the bowl beneath.

Gritting his teeth and hoping that Hermione was right, he pointed his wand at this and whispered the words that he had read in a letter just that morning.

"_Singuli Potesta._"

The tank went dark once more for the briefest of moments as Harry's illumination spell was cancelled by this new one; then the water blazed again, only this time a brilliant gold. It subsided quickly, yet a blurred golden hue continued to glitter over the flapper, as if it were an embossed coin.

Satisfied that nothing had exploded or been turned into a mushroom, Harry replaced the heavy tank lid with a thunderous clang. If done properly, this spell would just be yet another in a string of protection spells that Harry had been casting over his relative's home for the past week. Among them included a charm on the front and back doors, so they would make a loud gong sound if opened by a stranger; and every window was now Unbreakable. Harry had already been planning on charming the fireplace and chimney, but it was Hermione, one of his best friends from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, that had reminded him of the vulnerability of the plumbing in the house.

"Any wizard could slip a bit of poison, or Devil's Snare, or some other devious thing into the house if they managed to get it into the water pipes," she had written hastily, "so you've got to make sure you cover that, Harry, or who knows, your aunt or uncle could jump in the bath and then go comatose from a shower of Draught of Living Death."

The spell she had given him, though not perfect, would hopefully prevent such a circumstance. _Singuli Potesta_, when applied correctly, would cause any substance other than water to coagulate into a solid and become light enough to float, separating it from the water's main flow. The toilet was Harry's test run of it – he figured no one but Chomper would be drinking out of that, anyway.

The Ministry had not been happy when Harry had first written to them declaring that he was going to use magic despite that he still wasn't quite of age, let alone do it in a Muggle dwelling. Harry suspected that Mr. Weasley, the father of his other best friend Ron, might have had a hand in allowing him permission – for the Minister of Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour, had been adamantly against the idea at first. Scrimgeour had sent no less than three very angry letters to Harry's uncle and aunt on that first morning, demanding that they convince Harry to stop writing. Not surprisingly, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had been outraged, for Harry had conveniently neglected to tell them of his wishes to perform magic outside of school, let alone under their roof. Nevertheless, Harry had persisted, and he was eventually and reluctantly granted permission, but not without at least half a dozen letters from Ron that Harry enjoyed for their unwavering and supportive abuse of the Ministry.

Now that the toilet was done, Harry wasted no time in charming both the shower and the bathroom tap with _Singuli Potesta_; they, too, continued to glow with that mysterious gold light even after the charming was done, and Harry could only hope that his relatives wouldn't pay much attention to it.

The sound of clicking dog nails on kitchen tile came floating up from downstairs while Harry gazed around the bathroom, wondering what else would need charming. His eyes lighted upon the furnace vent near the floor…could that be a possible security risk…? Nothing human-sized could come through it, obviously, but something small…a house-elf, maybe…it could probably manage it. But before he could think of a spell to solve the problem, he heard heavy footsteps creaking up the stairs.

"You still in there, boy?" said Uncle Vernon gruffly from just beyond the doorway; he seemed reluctant to come into view, as if he thought Harry might have decided to do those private bathroom things regardless of the door being wide open.

"Yeah," said Harry, and he regretfully left his thoughts of spells and enchantments behind him as he walked through the doorway onto the upstairs landing, stowing his wand in his pocket as he went. There his uncle was, teetering in the space between the top of the stairs and the bathroom. His eyes were a bit glazed from the brandy and his bushy mustache looked rather static, but he still fixed Harry with an agitated glare that told Harry only too well that he had done something wrong.

"What?"

"You know very well what, boy," growled Uncle Vernon. He leaned close to Harry, and Harry could smell the alcohol on his breath. "These – these…_spells" _(he hissed the word as if it scorched his throat to the point of blistering) "these _things_ you've been doing, you better not be jerking us around about them. Don't you go…_enchanting _our things just because that Minister man told you that you could. You have no right, and that's my word on it."

Harry sighed. "They're for your own good," he said warily.

Uncle Vernon narrowed his eyes and squared his jaw, as though he were itching to tell Harry just how much "good" he thought magic to be. However, he kept silent and merely stared at Harry for a moment longer, before finally saying, "Your aunt has dinner nearly ready. Either eat at the table or don't eat at all, it's up to you."

Harry hardly needed to spare a moment to think about it. "No, I think I'll just go to my room."

"Then go hungry, boy," Uncle Vernon growled, a smirk blooming beneath his mustache. Harry fully expected him to go back down the stairs with a gloating expression on his face right then, but instead the man hesitated. He seemed to have more to say, only whatever it was, it wasn't at all to his taste. Whatever it was, it was probably the real reason Uncle Vernon went to seek him out in the first place.

"Yes?" Harry prompted, raising his eyebrows.

"Your…your aunt would also like a word with you," he said, squeezing the words out of a reluctant mouth. "After supper."

Harry lifted his eyebrows even higher, only this time in surprise.

"What about?"

"Don't ask questions!" Uncle Vernon roared, eyes flashing. "If you're not to attend supper, then stay in your room until the time when your presence is…wanted."

This last word seemed to hurt his throat more than "magic" had, and he looked horrified that he had dared utter it. But before Harry had the chance to get anything else from him, Uncle Vernon wheeled around and stomped heavily down the stairs again.

Harry stood there, not knowing what to think. Aunt Petunia wanted to speak with him? This was most unPetunia-like. He couldn't remember the last time she had ever requested his company for anything other than household chores. What could she possibly want to talk about?

Harry's mind was churning with this question as he walked across the landing to his bedroom, where he slipped quietly inside, closing the door behind him. His eyes were greeted with an unusual sight: everything in the room was neat and orderly, not even a single sock lying discarded on the hardwood floor. The bed was even made. Harry bounded over to it and stretched out on the smoothed bedspread. He stared up at the ceiling, thinking. …The closest Aunt Petunia had ever come to taking an interest in him was two years ago, when Harry and Dudley had been attacked by dementors -- Aunt Petunia had known what dementors were, and it had shocked Harry to discover it. Those same feelings of confusion were being reborn in his chest now. He didn't know what to make of it.

Just then, the light from the lamp on the nightstand flickered and died. The house around him seemed to groan as the electricity momentarily drained away once again, only to return a split-second later. The lamp suddenly glowed brightly again. Harry turned his head toward the window next to the nightstand, as he had done so many times that summer. The white fog still swirled mischievously beyond the glass, looking cold and merciless. Dementors…they were responsible for this, Harry already knew that. It was so much worse than it had been the previous summer, when it had only been a mist and not this thick fog… Harry had heard that the dementors were breeding. If that were so, then there must be loads of them now. He shuddered at the thought. Dementors were the vilest creatures in existence. Cloaked and dead-looking, they stole the happiness from anyone within reach of their powerful, rattling breath, sucking out the good and leaving only the most distraught memories behind. It was misery to be near just one. An army of them would be more than devastating… They could be fought, as Harry knew all too well, but it would take strength and numbers to do it.

It was as if that cold, life-stealing fog was reaching through the window now and grasping his chest. Harry found himself once more being deluged with that terrible truth that lay heavy in his stomach like a jagged stone. Dementors, while horrible, could be defeated even in these numbers, if people worked together to do it. But as for the leader of the dementors…only one person could do that. Only one particular person could defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort.

That was why the room around Harry looked so neat and clean. That was why the trunk at the end of his bed was packed with everything he might need for a long and difficult journey, his Invisibility Cloak in prominence. Harry's old school books, however, went unpacked. They were stacked inside his closed wardrobe -- he wouldn't need them anymore. While the letter from Hogwarts had arrived early this summer informing students that the school would indeed be open to whoever wished to return, Harry had only read it out of curiosity. The letter and envelope since lay untouched on Harry's desk, with the emerald green ink glimmering dully in the shadows. Harry didn't need that, either. He would not be returning to Hogwarts this year.

Harry sighed and let his eyes wander freely over the ceiling, stopping here and there only when he spotted a particularly interesting shape in the paint. Yet still his mind wouldn't let it go. Harry would give anything to be free of his burden, and go finish his education with his friends. But he knew he couldn't – wouldn't. This was yet another cruel way for Voldemort to disrupt Harry's life, though Harry supposed he should be used to losing things to that monster by now. First his parents…then his fellow classmate Cedric…his godfather Sirius…and then last year, last year the worst loss of all: having to watch Snape murder Dumbledore, the only one Voldemort had ever feared, while Harry remained powerless to stop it. And now Harry couldn't have Hogwarts anymore…

Harry's eyes began to sting slightly and a small lump formed in his throat -- he blinked it back immediately. Crying didn't help anything. Only that distant, suppressed part of him thought it could do anything – eleven-year-old Harry would want to cry, or at least scream from the unfairness of it all. But eleven-year-old Harry was gone. He had been for a long time now. Time to time he had to remind himself of that again. Dumbledore…Dumbledore would not want him to grieve. Dumbledore would want him to continue his fight against Voldemort, to continue his search for the remaining Horcruxes… Harry would have to put his own suffering behind him in order to do it.

The light from the lamp seemed to grow even brighter as the sun finally set, its last vestigial rays a mere smudge through the thick, veil-like fog. There was a guttering sound as the furnace struggled to come on, and soon hot air was pouring into Harry's room through the vent. Its heat battled to overtake the chill that was already seeping through the fog-encased window. It was going to be a cold July night.

Harry kept most of his attention on the sounds of cutlery clinking on plates coming from the kitchen downstairs, yet he was also listening for the sounds of a returning owl. Harry had been quite reluctant to send his snowy owl, Hedwig, out into this weather – what if she couldn't find her way through it? But Hedwig had nipped him reassuringly on the finger all the same before she had flown out the window, the letter to Lupin tied to her leg. That was five days ago. Harry had only just begun charming the house at that point, and he had wanted Lupin's opinion as to what additional spells he should use, and Hedwig was the only one Harry trusted to find the old DADA teacher. Now he wondered if he ought to have bothered at all.

The truth of the matter was that Harry would be leaving the Dursleys in a mere three days, the moment he turned of age. He had a very good reason to want to make the house as protected as possible before he left – he didn't want Voldemort to have the satisfaction of murdering Harry's last remaining relatives in his absence. He had no idea how many of Dumbledore's old protective charms would remain on the house now that the headmaster was gone, or now that Harry was turning seventeen. He wasn't about to take any chances. Every opportunity he got, he was asking all those he trusted for advice.

Since Hedwig's absence, Harry had been receiving tips from his best friends by Muggle post; they seemed determined to talk to him even if owls couldn't be relied on because of weather. Hermione managed this easily, her letters looking ordinary and plain. Ron, on the other hand, had succeeded in sending an envelope that promptly started singing (Harry assumed this was Fred and George's fault) "Jingle Bells, Percy Smells" in a loud, raucous voice that caused Uncle Vernon to drop it with a roar of surprise, and making the mailman at the door (who had beforehand looked very woebegone from his perilous journey though the fog) to double-up wheezing with laughter, with the apparent impression that the song was due to a microchip. All and all, the Dursleys hadn't been too pleased to find out that accompanying their daily mail would be messages from the Wizarding world. Nevertheless, the advice from Harry's best friends had been quite helpful, and Harry had followed a lot of it. Hermione, of course, had swallowed all her textbooks and could quote any useful charms by memory, but Ron had the advantage of fully-qualified wizards hanging around the house – he could just ask them what they thought.

In each of their letters, both Ron and Hermione had asked Harry about his choice not to return to Hogwarts. It was inescapable that they would. Each time, however, Harry replied stiffly that he had already made his decision. He couldn't sit safely in school anymore while innocent people were murdered by someone that, as it was prophesized, only Harry could defeat. It would take time to find the Horcruxes – the items that literally contained pieces of Voldemort's soul – and Harry didn't want to waste a moment of it. Voldemort was going down.

Harry's thoughts were wandering, but before long the dismal sounds of clinking and of meaningless table chatter from downstairs began to fade, and Harry knew that supper must be ending. He realized that Aunt Petunia would be expecting him soon, but he found himself not wanting to get up. His mind was already filled with enough weight at the moment; he didn't want to add to it this new stone of whatever Aunt Petunia had to say.

He rolled over onto his side instead and attempted to redirect his thoughts to something less morbid… The image of a particular red-headed, freckled girl floated into his mind, bright and cheerful-looking. He was put at ease somewhat. Ginny Weasley…he wondered where she was right now. Probably preparing for her sixth year at Hogwarts, getting new books, quills, a new set of robes… That was one of the hardest things he was faced with leaving behind. A girl whom he had, at first, seen merely as a sort of little sister, she was now leaving a gaping hole in his heart with the force of her absence. Harry had only just realized how much he cared for her when they broke up at Dumbledore's funeral last term…but they had both agreed it was for the best. An enemy of Lord Voldemort couldn't afford to have love. It would have been Ginny's death sentence, and Harry couldn't have that.

Harry sighed and felt for the bit of parchment that was folded in his pocket. He pulled it out. It was Ginny's latest letter; she had been mailing him almost as frequently as Ron and Hermione. He carefully unfolded it, taking caution not to tear the weakened creases. Her sleek handwriting greeted him, and he read over the letter for the umpteenth time, as he had done with all her letters, memorizing each by heart. In three days, when he was to begin his journey, he would have to leave all of her letters behind. He was even contemplating burning them, all the better for security. Last thing he needed was for Lord Voldemort to get his hands on one of them. But for now he was going to enjoy Ginny's thoughts, and his brilliant green eyes danced from word to word, relishing in the rare happiness blossoming in his chest.

_Dear Harry,_

_I know it must be hard for you, all of this. I can't imagine what you must be feeling right now. Believe me, I've tried, and my head near exploded. If I were in your place, I _know _that I wouldn't be able to handle it. Honestly. And even though I desperately wish that you would be returning with me to Hogwarts this September, I respect your decision. In fact, I'm glad you made it, because the sooner you kick that bastard's ass, the better. When you've ripped that monster to shreds (and you WILL), come back to me, won't you? We have some catching up to do._

_Talk to you later, Harry. Hopefully it will be in person._

_Love,_

Ginny

_P.S. Do be sure to kick Mr. Dark Lord in the gonads, if he has any. I've wondered about that._

Harry couldn't help but give a small smile, something that was rare nowadays. He didn't know just what to make of Ginny's pondering of the existence of Voldemort's privates, but it made him laugh all the same. And that bit about Ginny not being able to cope if she were in his place…he knew she was saying that merely for his benefit. The Ginny he knew was a whole lot stronger than she really let on, and she let on a lot. Harry smiled again. He was just about to tuck the letter back into his pocket when there was a sharp knock on his bedroom door.

"Hurry up," came Aunt Petunia's curt voice through the wood. "I really don't have much time to spare. Come down to the living room."

Harry knew that this would come eventually and he sighed, but he didn't feel much like disobeying. As Aunt Petunia's footsteps faded away, Harry rolled off the bed in one smooth motion. Once the letter was tucked safely in his pocket, he wasted no more time in making his way downstairs.

The first thing he noticed was that the living room was very warm, and very much in contrast to the frozen white still visible through the curtained windows behind the sofa, upon which Harry's fat cousin Dudley was snoring loudly. In addition to having the heater on full-blast, a large fire was roaring in the grate. (The fake coal one lay discarded in a corner.)

Uncle Vernon was currently sitting in the large armchair. In the three seconds Harry watched him, he kept making an odd sound, a mix between a huff and a snort, before downing another large gulp of his brandy. This was in addition to all the other brandy he had consumed earlier in the evening, and his tiny eyes were even more glazed than before. He squinted around the room and spotted Harry. Uncle Vernon gave him the same glazed look he had given everything, and then shrugged it off, taking another loud gulp.

Harry quickly turned his attention to his Aunt Petunia. Oddly enough, she was now kneeling on the floor directly in front of the television. The screen was blaring more news about the unusual weather which, the Muggles were reporting, seemed to originate from coast of the North Sea, and one rather pudgy man had just come on to argue about how Global Warming was to blame for it. Aunt Petunia unglued her eyes and turned to look at Harry, just as the fat man proclaimed, "The earth is getting its revenge on us, you mark my words, and I bet --"

"You are late," she said simply.

"Am I?" Harry replied curtly.

She narrowed her eyes in disdain, but she didn't say anything. Instead she got to her feet and beckoned Harry to follow her as she cautiously stepping over the sleeping mass that was the bulldog Chomper. Puzzled, he walked in her wake as she led him out of the dining room (Uncle Vernon following them with his glassy eyes the whole time). Harry's confusion deepened as she led him clear to the back of the sparkling kitchen and through the door into the small side room Aunt Petunia used for laundry. There wasn't much room beside the washer and dryer, but Harry crammed in after her, careful not to knock her in the back with his elbows.

"What's this all abo--?" he began, but she cut him off as she closed the door with a snap. The bright light from the kitchen was immediately blocked out.

"Quiet," she said briskly, turning to face him. It was rather hard to see her face, as the only remaining light in the room was a dingy little light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Harry shut his mouth.

"Have some tea," Aunt Petunia snapped.

"Wha--?" Harry was beginning to think she had lost it.

"Quiet," she said again. She didn't say anything else, but pointed one of her sharp fingers to the top of the washing machine. Sure enough, there was a tray of hot tea ready, right next to a basket overflowing with dirty laundry. Harry paused, unsure. Now at close range he could see that Aunt Petunia was looking really stressed, and her jaw was clenched.

"Take some!" she barked.

Harry took a cup and filled it only halfway with tea from the teapot. After another glare from Aunt Petunia, he added a bit of sugar and milk, and tentatively took a sip.

"Good," she said, and her demeanor seemed to relax a tiny bit. It was as if she had expected Harry to react in a completely different manner. "Now, I have to speak to you."

"About what?"

"I'll ask the questions here," she replied briskly. "Now…about this weather. I want you to explain."

Harry's mouth gaped open for a second. _This was the reason she had called him down? This was all?_

"Well…" he said slowly. "It's being caused by the dementors…you know about them…"

"Yes, yes, yes," Aunt Petunia said impatiently. Harry clearly hadn't given her the answer she wanted. "But _how _are they doing it? How can they invade on the lives of _normal _people?"

Harry didn't know what to say. Conversation with Aunt Petunia was an endangered species, and he wasn't sure how to handle himself. "Well…erm…they're doing it by…well…magic."

Aunt Petunia's eyes widened at the "m" word, and she flapped her hand in front of her horsy face as if to ward it off. "No, no, no…." she said, exasperated.

Harry suddenly got the feeling that she was trying to ask something different altogether, though he wasn't sure why he felt this way.

"What is it?" he asked cautiously, setting his hardly-touched teacup down onto the washing machine.

"'What is it?'" she repeated, voice rather strained. "'_What is it?_' Ha! What do you think it is, you stupid boy…"

"Er –"

Aunt Petunia put her hands to her forehead like she had a headache.

"How do they know?" she burst out suddenly, her already-strained voice becoming high-pitched. "These mad friends of yours, how do they distinguish _us, _MY family from any other household? Is it because YOU send off some sort of mad beacon that they pick up? Is that it, are you bringing it all to this house?"

"Er – dementors are after _everyone, _not just this house, but yeah, they are kinda after me – and there's no way I would ever call a dementor any sort of friend…"

"No, no, no," she repeated again, sounding very annoyed, and she let her hands fall. "I'm not talking about those – those filthy monsters."

It may have been due to the fact that Harry was in the laundry room, but an image of Aunt Petunia forcibly scrubbing down a dementor suddenly popped into his head, and he had to stifle an abrupt urge to grin.

"Then – er – what are you talking about?" Harry said with a straight face, but he truly was puzzled by what Aunt Petunia had said, and it was becoming rather annoying. Hadn't they been talking about dementors here…? What did she mean, then, by "mad friends"?

Aunt Petunia glared at him as if to accuse him of stupidity. She kind of jerked her shoulder, as if in irritation, but then she hesitated, scrutinizing him very closely. She seemed to be pondering whether or not to reveal something. Harry fidgeted in the silence; these close quarters with his aunt weren't exactly comfortable. However, within a few moments Aunt Petunia must have made her decision, for to Harry's further bewilderment, she reached into the pocket of her overcoat and pulled out a used paper towel that was covered in what looked like tea stains.

"There. This came just after lunch," she snapped, spreading the paper towel out over the top of the dryer. She glared at him defiantly. "This is utter ludicrousness, I don't need any more _problems _to deal with, getting mail from those freaks was one thing, but this I will not have. Whatever sick, cruel prank your freakish friends are playing, I will not have it."

This time Harry didn't say anything. He merely looked at the paper towel with dull eyes; and he wondered if all the current conditions had truly caused his aunt to snap. He knew how she felt about cleanliness and such, but all this fuss over a dirtied paper towel? Did she truly believe that any one of his friends would go to the trouble of coming over here to merely splash tea over her precious floor?

"Well…that's…um…" he trailed off, having nothing to say.

"Oh, I knew you would deny it, you never have been much for honesty, have you? Lying about what you've done to Dudley, lying about your chores, lying about what goes on at that blasted _school _of yours --"

"I don't _lie_ –" Harry began hotly.

"NO! I am tired of this," she breathed angrily. "I will not even bother listening to your excuses this time." She grabbed the paper towel and pushed it toward him. "Go on. _Read it!"_

"Read it…?"

"Yes. _Read it_," she hissed.

Thinking Aunt Petunia was utterly and completely out of her mind, Harry turned his eyes back to the towel. There seemed nothing spectacular about it, besides being stained. His eyes traced the stains, which were in a spattered sort of pattern more than anything, like Aunt Petunia had merely placed the towel lightly over the spill and left it at that. There would be spatters that were grouped together, and then there would be a space, then another group, then another space, and so on. It was rather peculiar-looking, and Harry figured that it must have been quite a mess to clean up. The pattern was very distinct…in fact, the stains rather resembled…

_Words._

Harry took a double-take. Yes, they were words. The curvature of some of the spatters gave away subtle the shape of letters, but mostly the stains were so smeared that it was nearly impossible for Harry to make out what they said.

"Well?" Aunt Petunia demanded, watching him closely.

Harry turned to look at her, shocked.

"How…how did this happen?"

"Why does that matter?" she said almost disdainfully, but Harry saw her horsy face go pale all the same. She wasn't going to tell him how it happened. So it must have had something to do with magic, something just weird enough to cause her to go mute about it.

"Well? What do they mean by it?" she repeated, more sharply this time.

"I…can't really read it," Harry said honestly.

Aunt Petunia glared at him. "You stupid boy, really…" she growled, as if she thought it utterly ridiculous that he was unable to read a bunch of smears. She pushed him aside a little, so he was crammed against the wall. "This is a 'the'," she said as if it were the most obviously thing in the world, pointing to the first and most illegible stain. "This one is a 'word'," she said, pointing to the second stain group.

"Erm, yeah, I know it's a word," Harry replied dully.

"No, you stupid boy," she said again. "It's the word 'word'! This third one is 'is', and the next is 'out'."

Harry rushed to put the words together in his mind. "'The word is out'? What is that supposed to mean?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" said Aunt Petunia irritably. "The sentence ends there. The next word is 'You', then 'must', then 'stay', then 'alert'."

Aunt Petunia was reading the smears so fast that he knew that she must merely be reciting it all from memory, rather than deciphering the actual stain. But Harry had gotten the hang of it now, and he could sort of see the words through the tea.

"_The word is out,_" he read aloud. "_You must stay alert. They are…"_ He squinted at this last word.

"'Coming'" finished Aunt Petunia ominously. "It's not signed."

A heavy silence fell. _They are coming… _Harry had the feeling that he knew who the "they" were. His stomach twisted painfully.

"How did you get this, Aunt Petunia?" he asked seriously. "Who sent this, how did you receive it?"

"I don't know who sent it!" she snarled irritably.

"Okay, then how did you get it? Why is it written in tea?"

She paused, her face again going pale. Harry noticed that she had begun chewing on her tongue, a nervous habit of hers.

"Aunt Petunia, listen, I have to know how you got this, it's really important, okay?" Harry hoped that, if he knew the way the message was delivered, he might get some clue as to who sent it. And if it could be trusted.

Aunt Petunia's eyes were defiant.

"Aunt Petunia…please…" Harry pleaded.

"It's not important," she snapped, looking away.

"Look, I'm not going to think you're crazy, but I really need to know how you –"

Harry stopped mid-word. Something hot had just splashed down his back, soaking through his shirt.

Bemused, he turned to the washing machine, on top of which his undrunk cup of tea sat. Harry was shocked to see that the liquid was roiling, bubbling as if something beneath the surface was fighting to get out.

"Oh no," Aunt Petunia moaned, staring at it. "No, not again!" She backed away as far as she could, until her backside collided with the far wall. She sank to the floor looking absolutely terrified, hands over her face.

Harry kept his eyes on the teacup. It was bubbling harder than ever, and little spits of tea kept flying out. Harry got hit in the forehead and he wiped it away impatiently as his other hand groped for the wand tucked in his waistband. He pulled it out and held it at the ready, pointed directly at the teacup.

Then something orange leapt clear of the tea into the air, and Harry was so surprised he forgot to act. It landed with a wet _plunk _on top of the dryer as the tea in the teacup settled down once more.

Harry stared at the orange thing, his heart pounding in his chest. He was shocked to see that it was a common goldfish. Before he could think much of this, the goldfish began to dart – like a dance, somehow – across the surface. Its wet tailfins flashed, drawing lines of pearly brown tea over the white metal. Words began to form, and a dazed Harry realized that this must have been the mode of delivery for the last message as he began to read this new one.

"_THEY ARE COMING. THE TIME IS SHORT. YOU MUST GET OUT. THE HOUSE IS NOT SAFE ANYMORE. HOGWARTS IS NOT SAFE ANYMORE. THEY ARE COMING."_

The message complete, the fish flopped down and remained limp, its gills gasping for breath in the waterless environment. Harry remained stock still, listening to nothing but his own heartbeat and the sound of Aunt Petunia's whimpering. Only one thought could cross his mind – _What happens now?_


	2. A Ceramic Trap

**Chapter Two:**

**A Ceramic Trap**

The fish continued to gasp. Aunt Petunia continued to whimper. The fish's liquid message glimmered dully in the weak light, the letters cut sharply across the top of the dryer. A buzzing had begun to fill Harry's eardrums, blocking out all thought or concept except for the words blaring in front of him.

_THE HOUSE IS NOT SAFE ANYMORE…_

_THEY ARE COMING…_

BUUUUUUUUUUUZZZZZZZZ…

_Not this, _Harry thought desperately. _Not now…_

But his thoughts did nothing but vie off each other, bouncing into the separate corners of his mind where they would remain forever trapped and utterly useless. If this message was true, then…well, Harry would have no choice but to act. Now. Only there was a very big problem with that. A _very _big one.

_THE HOUSE IS NOT SAFE ANYMORE…_

_HOGWARTS IS NOT SAFE ANYMORE…_

Harry glanced over at his aunt. Her face was still concealed behind her hands. She looked fearful and oddly vulnerable in her corner.

If this message was indeed true, Harry already knew what he was going to have to do. But it would not be easy. It would not be easy at all.

_YOU MUST GET OUT…_

Harry closed his eyes, blocking out the sight of this unwelcome attack… Why couldn't this have waited another three days? Was the universe that much against him, that it couldn't even withhold its abuse until he was officially of age? Did it need to have an early go at him as well?

_But of course_, Harry thought furiously, _this is only to be expected_. He _was _Harry Potter, after all. Bad things always seemed to gravitate toward him. And what with Dumbledore gone and all... Indeed, that was why Harry had been adding his own little measures around the house for the past week. At that very moment, the old protective spells around Number Four, Privet Drive must be crumbling around him, leaving the house vulnerable for the first time in nearly sixteen years.

Unless…unless this message was a trick. It _could _be a trick, one meant merely to get him away from the house and out into the open. That was not only possible, but it was also very likely... But no…even that would indicate a breakdown of the protective spells. …This fish wasn't exactly an owl. Magic was backing it up somehow, and the only way it could have made it past the barriers would have to mean that those barriers weren't stable anymore. Either way, though, Harry was in trouble. Number Four, Privet Drive, while not even close to Harry's favorite place in the world, had nevertheless been a safe haven, a protection against Lord Voldemort. And now it was vanishing from beneath his feet.

Harry arose from murky thoughts just enough to realize that it was silent; Aunt Petunia had stopped whimpering. She was looking up at Harry with wide eyes. Her face was stretched with fear. Harry slowly pulled himself away from the grasping hands of his worries 'til they were at least about arm's reach – he needed to be able to focus.

"Is it –" Aunt Petunia began, her voice shrill, but then she coughed heavily into the crook of her arm, as if her fright had constricted her throat to the point of tickling. Once she recovered, she lifted her head again, more relaxed, and it looked as though she had regained some of her usual demeanor. Or at least the fear in her eyes wasn't so strong.

"It's done, is it?" she said, trying to sound like the whole event had been nothing more troubling than a mantel in need of a dusting.

"Yeah," Harry said shortly. "It's finished."

He watched as his aunt struggled to her feet. She made a point of not glancing in the direction of the message and fish messenger.

"Aunt Petunia…" Harry began slowly.

"What?" she snapped, as openly refusing to look at him as she was the message, but keeping her eyes firmly on the floor – which probably wasn't such a good idea, as its usual sparkling cleanliness was marred by random spatters of tea.

"How long are you going to stay in here?" Harry asked bluntly.

This time she didn't just look at him, she _glared _at him, and it was a poisonous glare too. "Why do you ask that?" she grumbled, looking offended.

"Because I have to do magic now."

Harry fully expected her to flinch. But she didn't. Instead, Aunt Petunia acted as though she hadn't even understood him. Limbs and back stiff, she walked straight over to the washing machine (Harry backed up, thinking, for a split second, that she was going to smack him). Instead, she grabbed the tea tray up. It shook slightly in her hands, causing the tea kettle to clank against the milk jug.

"Clean up your mess, and there hadn't better be a single drop left when I come in here to finish that laundry," she said boldly. "Dudders won't be pleased if you get tea all over his new slacks. And mop this floor!" she added scathingly. She then exited the laundry room so fast she was almost running; she slammed the door behind her using the heel of her shoe. Harry noticed that she had "forgotten" the cup of tea that had served as a very temporary home for the fish.

Speaking of the fish… Harry quickened over to the dryer and peered down at it. The little orange fish lay next to the oozing message of warning; it had long since ceased moving, but its gills still flapped weakly, its mouth agape. Lingering amounts of tea clung wetly to its fins. Harry was reminded forcefully of the many goldfish that Dudley used to bring home when he was around eight years old; he would always forget to feed them, and the moment they got listless he would snatch the poor creature out of its bowl so they could "play". More often than not the fish would end up getting tossed across the yard in a game of catch.

Harry quickly grabbed the abandoned tea cup, waved his wand to vanish what tea was left, and then filled it with swirling, crystal clear water by use of the Aguamenti charm. Harry set the cup down and carefully picked up the goldfish -- it felt oddly squishy beneath his fingers. It gave a feeble flop in his palm, and Harry felt the tickle of its fins against his skin. He tilted his hand down over the cup, and the fish slid with a wet "schloop!" over his fingers and into the cool water.

At first the goldfish did nothing; Harry watched it apprehensively, fearing it too late -- until finally it gave a little flick of its tail and sort of drifted down to lurk at the bottom of the cup, where it remained, passing water greedily over its gills.

Harry relaxed. He gazed once more at the dark message scrawled over the top of the dryer. The warning message may not have originally been signed, but as long as he still had the source of it, the fish, it was possible that he would still be able to find the sender. And then he could determine whether or not they could be trusted.

Harry scooted the fish's cup over onto the washing machine, well out of the way. Then he backed up.

"Sorry, Ginny," he whispered under his breath, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out the fiery-headed girl's latest letter and quickly unfolded it. Unwritten side up, he laid it out flat in his left palm, like something of an offering to the gods.

Then, with a sweeping whisk of his wand, the tea that lay sketched upon the dryer suddenly shuddered – it began to fidget like a bunch of nervous six-year-olds. The words twitched and splashed, little drops of stray tea flying through the air -- and then they finally broke clear of the smooth white paint to float, unsupported, five feet above the ground. They were letters in freefall, no longer flattened by gravity but rounded off droplets that somehow formed words. Harry made a circling motion with his wand, as if wrapping the words up in an invisible plastic bag, and he pulled. The message immediately shrank to fit these new, much smaller constraints; as there was not as much tea needed to spell it out, a spray of excess flew through the air in all directions. Harry winced as some flicked upon his glasses. Finally, he pointed the wandtip at the blank backside of the letter held in his hand. The message obediently drifted through the air to land upon the parchment. The liquid sank into the fibers immediately, looking like very concentrated stains; yet there was no smearing or blotting, so the message remained just as readable as before.

Harry was pleased. He hadn't been sure if it would work or not -- the spell was normally intended for regular ink, and on parchment, not dryers. A useful spell for cutting and pasting class notes, that was for sure. He stuck the wand in his back pocket.

Harry stooped down and snatched Aunt Petunia's old paper towel off the floor. Looking at the illegible print again, he was glad he had decided on his method of preservation instead. He folded together the towel and Ginny's now multi-purposed letter, and slipped them both into his back pocket. Then he scooped up the little teacup with the fish inside, tucking it close to his chest.

Without further ado, Harry turned and exited the little room, leaving behind the dirty laundry and lingering tea stains. With the opening of the door, his eyes seemed to be forced deeper into his sockets by the sudden harsh, fluorescent light of the kitchen, and he blinked them furiously to get them to adjust.

The kitchen was quiet except for the vague sounds of the television drifting from the sitting room. Aunt Petunia was nowhere in sight. Harry figured that was probably a good thing, considering what he was about to do to her dishes. He walked over to the nearest cabinet, the one that hung over the sink. He set the fish onto the counter, and then opened the cabinet door to reveal a towering stack of gleaming china -- white plates with fancy little blue pastel designs.

Harry grabbed the topmost plate and held it over his head. Then he smashed it to the floor with all his might.

_CRASH!_

Bits of sharp glass and ceramic dust went flying everywhere, and Harry automatically shielded his face with his forearm.

"What the bloody _hell _–" came Uncle Vernon's slurred shout from the sitting room, though it was barely audible through Aunt Petunia's piercing shriek. Harry lowered his arm as she bolted through the doorway.

"_What – are – you – DOING_?!" she croaked, skidding into the kitchen and looking absolutely horrified as her eyes lighted upon the shattered pieces of plate scattered across the once-spotless floor.

"Doing a test run," Harry replied calmly as Uncle Vernon staggered drunkenly into the room, his eyes bulging.

"A – _test run –_" wheezed the man. The vein in his temple was pumping so hard you would think it was trying to clear out a blockage the size of a dime.

"Yeah," Harry said as casually as he could manage. Aunt Petunia promptly began to emit screeching sounds of rage from the back of her throat, although not much sound escaped as her teeth were clenched in a vice of fury.

"Why the _effing hell _are you talking about?!" Vernon raged, raising his fist threateningly.

Ignoring his uncle's refreshed shouts, Harry reached back into the cabinet and heaved a huge pile of the very best and thickest china into his arms. They were very heavy and dug into the bare skin of his arms, but years of Quidditch training seemed to make the pull of gravity a bit less intense.

"_What do you think you are doing with those, young man?!" _Aunt Petunia raced toward him as if he were holding a pointed dagger over her newborn baby. With a combination of pressing the dishes against his abdomen and leaning backward to adjust his center of gravity, Harry was able to free one of his hands. He snatched his wand from his pocket and leveled it at his aunt.

"Sorry Aunt Petunia," he said plainly, speaking over the china that came up to his chin, "but these are casualties of war."

She mouthed wordlessly at him for a moment. "_Casualties?" _she finally spluttered, the red creeping into her face.

"Yeah, casualties."

Aunt Petunia seemed stricken beyond language, trapped between fear of potential magic and a near irresistible need to protect her tableware.

"I am going to bring these to the front door," Harry declared. "Neither of you had better lay a finger on me, _or else_." He brandished the wand threateningly again. Uncle Vernon, eyes still horribly glazed from the brandy, gave what might have been a frightened gulp.

Harry made to stow his wand away in his back pocket again, but thinking better of it, he instead carefully slid it behind his ear, reminiscent of the Ravenclaw Luna Lovegood. All the better to reach for.

With his treasure in arms, Harry stepped quietly around his aunt and uncle, who seemed to be having internal arguments about what they should do. Harry exited the kitchen and stepped onto the cushy carpet of the sitting room. Dudley, who had been fast asleep even before Harry had come downstairs to speak with his aunt, miraculously seemed not to have been disturbed by the din of before. He opened his mouth every few seconds to suck in a huge trembling snore.

Chomper, however, was no longer sleeping. The bulldog lay wide awake at the end of the coffee table. He eyed Harry with beady brown eyes, his top canines grasping his lower lip as though itching to bite.

Harry ignored them both and made his way to the front door. Very little light shone through the fog-smothered panes of rippled glass, and Harry thought that it must be very near night time.

He kneeled down with difficulty and carefully set the plates on the spot of tile just at the foot of the door. The china made various clinking noises as they settled in place. Straightening up, Harry held his wand ready yet again.

"_Wingardium Leviosa!"_

The stack of plates seemed to lift itself slowly off the ground, as if supported by invisible hands. Harry directed it to rise until the topmost plate was no more than an inch from the ceiling; then it steadied itself and remained still, all sign of support absent. He heard his aunt and uncle, who were obviously not far behind him watching warily, draw in breath sharply. He waited, but they didn't make any further objections.

Harry had to focus for the next part. This was something he had only read about, and even then, something he thought that would only be useful as a prank, not as a defensive device. He narrowed his eyes in concentration and with his wand drew an imaginary line vertically through the air, right beneath the hovering plates. He forced himself to see the line in his mind's eye, a shimmering thread of blue-gray that connected the dishes to the floor, supporting them in their lofty position. He pictured it being very strong; the thread would not break under most circumstances.

Harry, while still trying to maintain his concentration, wondered just how he should do the next step. With pranks, it would be easy – tell the thread to shatter when and only when a particular person walks through it. But he didn't know exactly who would be coming through that door…

But then it came to him. It wasn't that complicated, not really. _Break when someone who intends to do harm crosses this threshold, _he thought intensely, wand pointed forward like a commanding sword. Even though he couldn't actually see the line with his eyes, in his imagination he saw it glow boldly with confirmation – if walked through by someone with less-than-pure intentions, the line would shatter, breaking the Alohomora charm and sending the plates crashing down onto whoever might be there. It would serve both as a first defense and also as an alarm system. One shattered plate had been enough to get Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon running – Harry could only imagine what fifteen or twenty would do.

Harry spent no time admiring his handiwork. He turned about to face Aunt Petunia, whose long face looked near shriveled with the impossible angst of seeing her precious china dangling at the edge of some unknown, horrible fate.

"Aunt Petunia, I need some more plates and stuff. Cups, saucers, anything."

Her eyes bulged out of her head and she bit down so hard onto her tongue that Harry was surprised she didn't yelp from pain. "_What_, so you can desecrate more of them with your magic, your filth?!"

Harry suddenly got the impression that even if any of her dishware were to survive all this, Aunt Petunia would still promptly throw it away anyway, feeling it to be tainted.

"Look…you know those messages, from the fish and all?"

Aunt Petunia remained pointedly mute. Uncle Vernon looked bewildered and mouthed, "messages…from the fish?" Aunt Petunia obviously had not told him about it. Harry continued.

"If someone's coming, we have to have defenses built up. We can't leave – the fog out there is so thick, a Death Eater or something could grab one of us and the rest of us wouldn't even know it. There are no negotiations with these people, they will kill."

Aunt Petunia paled quite a lot at that last bit, yet she opened her mouth to say something, perhaps to further protest, but Uncle Vernon cut her off. Light-headed on drink though he was, he glared Harry straight in the face.

"Now listen to me, boy," he growled furiously. "I don't need any help from _you _to protect _my _family, that's why I've got my gun, and why Marge gave us that dog. Freaks though your kind are, you can't dodge bullets!"

Harry heaved a sigh. His head was beginning to ache.

"It would be so pathetically easy for them to avoid being hit by something like a bullet, it's not even worth talking about," Harry muttered simply.

Uncle Vernon turned several more shades of red.

"Oh is that so, eh? Your lot is not invincible! That's impossible! That is the biggest load of tosh, the most ridiculous –"

Harry tuned him out. He looked back to Aunt Petunia.

"You can buy yourself some more teacups when there's world peace. But until then, we have to use what we've got – the way I have these plates here," he said, gesturing above them, "They're kind of like a booby trap. They'll stop or at least delay anyone breaking into the house, at the same time letting us know that something's up. I want to line the staircase and other parts of the house with the same kind of thing. It will hopefully slow those people down enough to give us the time we need to escape or hide or whatever is necessary."

Aunt Petunia had her eyes shut tight, eyebrows knitted.

"Do you understand, Aunt Petunia?"

Her nostrils flared, but she nodded stiffly.

"If – you…must –" It sounded like the most painful thing she had ever said in her life.

Taking it to be her word, Harry, already planning where the best spots to put more of the traps would be, made to move back into the kitchen.

"Wait a moment," snarled Uncle Vernon, grasping the front of Harry's shirt and holding him back. "I will not have danger looming over my head every time I take a foot in this house. What if one of those traps landed on Dudley?"

"Don't worry about that," said Harry, glancing over at the impossibly-still-asleep-and-snoring lump that was his cousin. "Those traps are triggered by the intent to harm. Which means," he added, smirking slightly, "that you have to think _really, really _nice thoughts every time you go near one, or else… Well, mistakes happen, one might just go off…"

He fought off the incredible urge to laugh at the look of complete horror blossoming on his uncle's face as he freed himself from the man's grip. Harry made his way back into the kitchen to take inventory. This time, only Aunt Petunia followed. Harry knew that she was there only to dictate which of her precious plates were forbidden for him to touch. This was going to be a very long night.

It was almost one in the morning by the time Harry had felt fairly satisfied with the booby traps. The kitchen was almost vacant of ceramic dishes, except for a few left behind for meals and whatnot, as well as a full set of really old and really dusty dishware in a cupboard next to the stove that Aunt Petunia had point-blank refused to allow Harry to even touch.

All in all, there were now no less than twenty-eight separate traps looming throughout the house. There were dishes above each window and door; they lined the staircase; they hovered ominously above the fireplace. All types of forks, spoons, and knives were nestled in the ceiling corners, prepared to lunge at any who dare to Apparate from thin air.

It was the next morning, not long after dawn. Harry had just woken up from a fretful, almost sleepless night. He lay on his bed, gazing out at the white fog pressed against the window. Whenever a door was opened or a window cracked, Harry was almost sure he could smell the scent of winter on its way. He reflected briefly on how the rest of the people in the country must be handling this – snow threatening to appear at the end of July. Astounding as it was, Voldemort's influence was even throwing nature off course.

On the nightstand next to him was a large glass vase full of water. Swimming in lazy circles was the goldfish from the night before. Harry had decided to put it in the vase instead when, last night, Aunt Petunia had glanced innocently into the teacup the fish had previously occupied and had promptly leapt backward shrieking. Harry figured that a clear vase might take out some of the surprise factor in any future encounters.

Lying next to the vase were the two messages, the one etched on the paper towel and the one on the back of Ginny's letter. Harry gazed at the words of warning for the umpteenth time. There was a knot deep in his stomach, which twisted painfully every time he perused the messages. It was a mixture of both fear and anticipation, manifested from what he was going to shortly attempt.

The night before, he had told Aunt Petunia a slight lie. When he had explained to her that leaving the house was dangerous, he had made it sound like he was going to stay locked up in here with them – but Harry's previous plans were unchanged, regardless of any recent events. The moment he turned seventeen, he was leaving to begin his final journey in the fight against Voldemort. Harry only had two days left. And he planned on spending most of his remaining time reading. He wasn't Hermione – he couldn't remember everything he had ever seen bound between two covers. A refreshment of all the things he had learned during his time at Hogwarts could only help – especially since he wasn't going to attend his seventh and final year there. A few select books would be coming with him, but until then, he was going to make sure he absorbed as much as he could from the ones being left behind.

In fact, he had handful of books lying next to him at that moment, although he had pretty much given up on them. He had been searching his textbooks for any reference to using a manifested fish to deliver messages, hoping for some clue as to how he could trace the creature back to its source. Nothing was coming up at all. He wished he could ask Hermione or Ron – but Hedwig was still absent. He mused silently that if it were possible, he could just as easily send that fish to them asking them to explain exactly how he had done it, as he really hadn't a clue.

_Only in a perfect world, _thought Harry bitterly. But in a perfect world, Voldemort would not exist. And that was just not the world Harry was trapped in.


	3. Topsy Turvy

**Chapter Three**

"**Topsy-Turvy"**

The People in the nearby village called it "The Emptiness".

Like a great void, it lay almost directly between the thin stretch of straggly oaks and the icy cold stream that the People had relied on for water for as long as the elders could remember. Every night as dusk fell, the People listened apprehensively for the Emptiness's strange apparitions to manifest. They were like ghosts – tall, pale, and wearing strange black robes. They spoke a foreign tongue and would be whisked in and out of existence, appearing then mysteriously evaporating away, like mist. Some of these ghosts were never seen again, while others returned. One particular group of spirits appeared more than all the others combined – three tall adolescents, all in their late teens and swathed thickly in black. One moment they would be there, seemingly chatting amongst each other as if they were real people, while the next moment, there would be nothing but the wind in the trees. Other times, it would just be one of them standing there, doing nothing but gazing nonchalantly at the fields beyond the stream or at the myriad of colors in the sky as the sun set. Even when no spirits were visible, whispering could still sometimes be heard leaking from between the branches. The ghosts' voices were strange to the ears of the People; they echoed like they were far away and seemed to recoil off the trunks of the trees to curl up into nowhere.

Sometimes there were reasons to fear the Emptiness. Very unusual beasts much like starved, winged horses made an appearance on the odd occasion. They had the gaze of death. And once, a giant snake, bigger than any seen before in those parts, was seen entwining its coils around a tree trunk. Fearing that this Emptiness might be a portal to the dark world, the People began to refrain from going near it. They relocated their site for water collection and taught their children not to wander.

This was one of those cautious evenings. The sun had just barely fallen and darkness was spreading across the sky like vapid ink. The Emptiness had been calm that evening; no strange apparitions were witnessed. The People were relaxed. They were still cheerful from a very successful hunt a few days earlier and had spent the majority of the day celebrating. As a result, they were all quite comfortable and sleepy. Their bellies were full and they were without worry. They hadn't received any bad news from the scout team sent to investigate their enemies living in the nearby canyon; and no illnesses had befallen them for months. They were, for the first time in a long while, utterly content.

A small girl was wandering along the old path, overgrown with grass due to lack of use. Her three older brothers had been feeling particularly festive that evening and decided to make it their task to frightening her as best they could. They had been leaping out from behind huts and trees with bits of fur and mud stuck to their faces, enhancing their resemblance to some swampish monster. In an attempt to escape them, she had run into the grove of trees she knew were off-limits; but she also knew that her brothers would not follow her in there.

To occupy herself as she walked, she kicked small stones out of their place with the toe of her sandal. She knew she was disobeying by being here, but, as she reminded herself, she was only going to stay for a while, at least until her brothers lost interest in chasing her. She hoped it wouldn't take long – the ghostly silence of these trees make her uneasy.

"Harry, why are we here?"

Harry nearly leapt out of his skin. Not really aware of even his own presence, he had been observing the small child as she walked along, he being much further along the path and standing in the midst of the trees clumped to the right of it. He whipped around to see his flame-headed best friend, Ronald Weasley, standing right next to him. His pale, freckled face looked thoroughly puzzled in the dimming light.

"Ron…?"

"Uh, yeah, it's me." He squinted into the shadows around them. "Where the hell are we?"

Harry gawked at him for a moment. He knew this was a dream; it felt exactly like one, or at least up until Ron had appeared. He'd never had a dream where someone spoke so clearly to him.

Ron blinked bemusedly. Harry opened his mouth to respond – then closed it. He became shockingly aware of his own ability to answer. That too had never occurred in his dreams. But it _had _to be a dream – how else could he be in this strange village? Without any memory of getting there?

"I-I don't know," he said hesitantly.

There was a strange whooshing noise behind him, like there was a breeze going through the grove, only he didn't feel any wind. He turned around to see Hermione manifest from thin air, donned in her school uniform and with her normal shock of brown hair framing her face.

"Harry!" she yelped, stunned as she caught sight of him. She looked around her, eyes widened to take in this new place.

"Hermione!" said Harry, relieved. "You're here too! Do you –" But she suddenly gasped, her shocked gaze fixed on a spot behind and to the left of Harry.

"Oh! It's a Crumple-Horned Snorkack! But they're not supposed to be real!"

"_What?!" _Harry hurriedly looked to see what she was gazing at, but all he could see was a dark patch of tall grass swaying between some tree trunks.

"Hermione, what are you…?" He trailed off. He had looked back at his friend, but she was nowhere to be seen. He quickly looked all around him, confused; but she was definitely gone.

He turned to Ron again, who was remained standing there, still as a statue. "Where did she go?"

But having shown no reaction to neither Hermione's abrupt departure nor to Harry's question, Ron stared blankly into the distance – before he too faded away, his figure becoming transparent and then disintegreting into the air. Harry yelped in shock and tried to grab him before he vanished, but his hands grasped only empty space.

The small girl, who had gradually been approaching, heard his shout. She snapped her head up from her preoccupation with stones and looked Harry square in the eye. He froze. The girl's mouth slowly opened and her dark eyes rounded. Suddenly, a strange sensation came over Harry. He began to feel light-headed…no, light-_bodied_…and slowly his vision faded as if blanketed with gray-colored sand. He felt like he was floating away…

The girl gave a piercing scream as Harry's body seemed to vaporize before her. She turned around and fled back to the village, crying the whole way.

As Harry lost himself in a world of nonexistence, the girl ran back to her hut, sobbing hysterically. Nonetheless, the girl never told her mother what was really wrong, even though the woman inquired about the girl's tear-streaked face. The girl lied and told her that her brothers had frightened her, and the mother accepted it – for indeed, that was what the boys had been setting out to do all day. As frightened as she was, the girl would never tell any of the other villagers what she saw that night.

For all the People knew, the Emptiness was completely silent that night. They believed they had no reason to worry. They all settled into their tiny thatch-roofed huts, ready for a night full of peace and dreams.

But the People were to be interrupted, for Harry was not the only apparition to appear from the Emptiness that night. Harry's perspective had changed – no longer a participant, he now viewed everything from above, an unobtrusive viewer. Below him in the trees, the air rippled, bubbling as if caught in a mirage. A new shape twisted itself out of the air. As the last villagers closed their eyes for the night, something new was lurking in the deep shadows beside the village. Its head hung low, its body long and vaguely feline. Great stinking waves spewed from between its daggers of teeth with every breath. Glittering eyes gazed from between the trunks, eyeing the tiny village before it. Stealthily it slipped from the shadows and ran smoothly to the nearest huts, thirsting for blood, thirsting for a kill – it was sooo hungry –

Its claws ripped through the first hut wall like it was paper, startling the settlers inside to the point of waking. They knew nothing of their fate before the creature was upon them, breathing its noxious fumes and tearing with deadly fangs – and the dreaming Harry felt his stomach jolt with the fear of it, coupled with the terrible inability to prevent the nightmare he was witnessing –

_The scene shifted…_

Suddenly the village was gone; everything faded misty black, the dream over... Harry's mind began to relax, his mind unaware, his rapidly twitching eyes coming to rest...there was only calm as the natural cycle of sleep resumed.

Then, abruptly, there was a brilliant flash of white light – and Harry found himself upright and corporeal.

It was nighttime. The full moon was directly above him, casting strange shadows every which way. In this new dream he felt distinctly cold, even though he was fully clothed. Goosebumps swarmed up his arms. He breathed out, a misty plume escaping his mouth. Beside him, a short wall of what looked like wheat was swaying lightly in a breeze. Some part of him, unaware of the lack of reality, wondered why he was here – he did not have that same eerie consciousness of the last dream. Any lingering memory of the village was already seeping away between the stems of the wheat plants.

He stood there, unmoving. He was at ease. It was quiet, peaceful. It therefore was a moment before some part of him realized that something was very out of place about where he was. His first thought had been that he was just outside some sort of farming field. But as he slowly turned a circle, he realized that he was not outside the field, but right in the middle of it. The "wall" was completely encircling him. The section of plant in which he stood was flattened beneath his trainers in a six-foot radius from every direction. A perfect circle in the middle of a field. His fingers tingled as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Strange.

An ethereal voice cut through the silence.

"_Harry._"

Harry turned his head about, startled. There was a figure standing before him, lit by the moonlight. Shorter than he was. The features were blurred, as if seen through a misted glass…he could not see who it was… Harry felt his face and realized that he was not wearing his glasses.

"_Harry_." The figure spoke again, more persistently. He saw the dark shape of the mouth move. Harry found that he could not tell if it were a male or female voice, or what the age was. The figure stepped closer; Harry took a step back.

Without warning, the figure suddenly lunged out with both hands and grabbed him forcefully by the shoulders. Harry felt an intense shock of electricity, blasting through each cell, his hair standing on end, energy flying from his fingers and toes; it felt like the moon itself had grabbed hold of him –

"_Harry, you have to leave NOW!"_

Harry jolted awake. He was lying on his side in bed. It was still dark. As he became more aware, he realized with a bit of disgust that his face was sticking to his pillow, aided by a nice slick of drool. He pushed himself up, wiped the side of his face, and peered blearily at his alarm clock – 2:34 a.m. Harry groaned. This was his last real night at the Dursleys', as he would officially be turning seventeen in less than twenty-four hours. How typical that he would be woken at some obscene hour, depriving him of the comfort of sleeping in a bed, possibly for the last time. Who knew if he would be given that luxury during his search for the Horcruxes?

He groaned again and rolled over onto his back, thinking. His dreams had been unpleasant these past few nights, but these ones took the cake. They kind of reminded him of the sorts of dreams that he used to have just before and right after Voldemort had risen…but Voldemort was using Occlumency against Harry now, Dumbledore had been sure of it… A dream brought upon by nerves, Harry supposed… What had that figure said right before he had woken up? Harry scrunched his face, trying to recall. But the harder he tried, the more faded it became. He could only recall an intense sense of urgency now. Annoying, how dreams slip away… He could no longer really remember the unusual dream involving the small village.

Even more bothersome than dreams, however, was how his room seemed really, really bright. He noticed it as he looked up at the ceiling. He blinked in the light for a few moments before it hit him. Moonlight. There was just moonlight shining through the window.

Wait a moment…

Harry leapt out of bed so quickly that his bedcovers seemed to fuse around his legs; he ripped at the cloth with an impatience that only such a moment could bring. Once free, he staggered over to the window. He gazed out of it for the longest moment, trying to comprehend what he was seeing.

The fog was gone.

The moon was full and high in the sky, just like in his last dream, and the light was shining unhindered by mist. The sky was perfectly clear. Down below he could see the shadows of Privet Drive clearly for the first time in weeks, all stretched spider-like by the moonlight. The street lamps were dark – had the city turned them off? But no…even with the fog, Harry had seen their glow on the previous nights, a vague orange smear through the white blanket pressed against the glass…fog that had been as thick as cream only a few brief hours ago…

Harry closed his eyes against the celestial glow, sheltered behind the cool black cover of his eyelids. All lingering sensations of sleep were melting away. Harry's internal alarms were flaring up. Something was up; the fog could not clear that readily on its own. Something made it dissipate. It was a path…he knew it must be…a path cleared directly to Privet Drive. To him.

Harry's eyes flew open. He lifted his glasses from the nightstand and slipped them on. Then he gazed out the window once more, the features of what had been his reluctant home for the past sixteen years brought into sharp focus. His nerve endings felt like they had electricity sparking from the tips. He picked up his wand.

Something was coming. The knowledge pulsated through his blood. The defenses…he should check them. What if someone (or something) had already attempted to disable them…? He turned toe, clad in his pajamas and eyes wide against the night.

But before Harry had started for his bedroom door to begin a thorough examination of the house, something hit Number Four, Privet Drive with such a tremendous force that he was thrown off his feet.

_WHAMMM!_

Harry landed painfully on his backside. The house seemed to groan around him, as if roaring with its own brand of pain. Stunned and disbelieving, Harry watched behind a daze as the walls of his bedroom seemed to twist before his eyes – the paint fell off in chunks to the floor and the few old posters above his bed seemed to pop right off – the window, which had been made Unbreakable, was making horrible, echoing gong-like sounds as it was stretched effortlessly like a piece of taffy –

Aghast, Harry scrambled up to his feet – or tried to. The floor bucked violently beneath him and he fell back again, clutching his wand instinctively to his chest. His ears rang with the terrible grinding noises coming from every inch of the house. This was some theme park ride gone horribly wrong – the adrenaline pumped through his blood, making every sense terribly alert of the smooth texture of the wooden floor beneath him and just how little protection it could provide. Somewhere in the rooms nearby, he could hear what sounded like screams of pure terror as his relatives woke up to the realization that their home was trying to rip itself from the earth –

The floor rumbled beneath him in a series of maniacal waves as easily if it were liquid. Then in a moment of pure, mind-numbing terror, the whole house seemed to completely tip to one side – Harry had once again been fighting to stand, but was pushed against the opposite wall as his bed slammed into him, pinning him against the far wall. His trunk made a screeching noise as it grinded across the room – Hedwig's empty cage fell off his desk with a metallic clatter; the wardrobe sprang open, expelling clothing and heavy textbooks; the vase that held the goldfish slid off the nightstand and shattered, sending droplets of water all over the place. So did the lamp, and there was a pop as the bulb in the ceiling light broke. Harry could hear the sound of all sorts of things breaking throughout the house –

The house gave a final, shuddering throw of agony – and then it ended. Harry's stomach did a loop-the-loop as the swaying house began to fall back into place, his eyes wide while he gripped compulsively at the mattress of his bed. The house shuddered horribly as it crashed back onto the foundation, Harry's jaw involuntarily snapping together with the force of it as he slammed face-first into the bedcovers. Then the grinding noise ceased, leaving only eerie silence.

Harry, his head spinning, struggled to push his bed away from him so he could move his legs again; the frame squealed piercingly as it bit into wood. Even free, he had to work hard to regain his balance. He stumbled a few feet away from the wall, legs wobbly. He looked around in dull bemusement – his room was a disaster area. The air was clotted with dust. All illuminated by the brilliant moonlight still streaming through the only intact glass of his room, which was now frozen in a contorted shape, stretched out in all sorts of strange, unnatural angles.

He staggered heavily over to the side of the window now, his breathing thick as his lungs sucked at the clotted air. He was not wearing any shoes and felt a bit of broken glass nick his heel, but he hardly felt it. His wand, which had miraculously not been lost or broken, was gripped hard in his hand. His heart was leaping against his ribcage and he could feel his pulse in all his extremities. Hugging his back to the now paint-denuded wall, Harry peered around the edge of it to carefully look down at the front garden. He scanned the dark shadows between the few decorative trees, the front drive, and the lawn, while at the same time trying to quiet his breathing as if fearful that someone outside would be able to hear it.

Harry saw no one down there. The yard was empty, silent, and holding no sign that its resident house had just tried to fly. Harry was not comforted. They had given away their presence -- houses did not try to uproot themselves on their own. They were out there, somewhere.

Suddenly, the door behind him – which had been badly splintered during the chaos – was violently kicked open. Heart pounding, Harry wheeled around ready for Death Eaters.

But it was only Uncle Vernon, whose pajamas were visibly tattered and dusty. He loomed monstrously, a great shadow in the doorway.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO MY HOUSE, BOY?!"

Harry had never seen the man look angrier. His face was shaking with fury, and his mustache had been ripped out in patches to the point where it was nearly gone – he looked capable of murder.

"I-I didn't do this," Harry stuttered.

"DON'T YOU LIE TO ME!" he roared, smarting Harry's ears. He was shouting so loud, another chunk of paint fell from the ceiling.

"_Shut up!" _hissed Harry.

"DON'T YOU _DARE _TELL ME TO –"

Harry's patience had left him. He pointed his wand at his uncle's throat and hissed, "_Silencio!"_

Immediately Uncle Vernon went mute. He clutched at his throat, looking shocked.

"_You have to be quiet," _Harry breathed angrily. "_All_ of you," he added, as a white-faced Aunt Petunia and a terrified Dudley appeared over Uncle Vernon's shoulders, both looking a little worse for wear.

Harry closed his eyes and breathed in the dusty air of his bedroom. Then he stepped over the broken clutter that littered his floor until he was right next to his only relatives.

"Okay," he muttered very quietly, so that they had to lean in to listen, while trying to keep the emotion – anger or fear, he couldn't decipher – from encroaching into his voice. "Look, I'm pretty sure that there are Death Eaters outside the house right now. We have to be very, very quiet, okay?" He had to gulp down some air after saying all that; he felt winded.

"Death…eaters?" repeated Dudley, a bemused expression on his face.

"Really, really bad people that work for Voldemort," Harry spieled as quickly as he could. He paused for a moment, grinding his jaw, then continued. "They're after me. And because you are all non-magic folk, they will probably kill you if they find you."

Uncle Vernon's eyes bulged, but he obviously couldn't vocalize what was on his mind.

"_Kill us?_" Aunt Petunia repeated fearfully, her voice squeaking. She gripped the back of Uncle Vernon's night shirt. "But – _why_? _We_ have done _nothin_g –"

"Because they think killing Muggles is a game," said Harry simply, ignoring how she seemed to imply that he alone somehow deserved this.

Aunt Petunia gulped and pressed her eyes shut, trying to block reality. Dudley whimpered, and his mother reached out a hand and squeezed his shoulder without even opening her eyes again.

"But you know how to get them to go away. You can make them leave us alone, right?" Dudley asked fearfully. Dudley's face was covered in a number of tiny scratches, and Harry assumed that his many video games and consoles had had a very close encounter with him during the turmoil.

Harry didn't answer. The truth was, he wasn't so sure that they weregoing to get away this time. Where would they go? The house was probably surrounded. And the Death Eaters would laugh at any request Harry made to spare the Dursleys. As horrible as his relatives were, Harry did not want to see them die at the hands of Voldemort. No one deserved that. No one except perhaps Snape.

Yet like in the wake of a severe storm warning, Harry's instincts were telling him to seek shelter in the lower level of the house as soon as possible. His breathing was calming. But before he could go downstairs, Harry needed to grab some things.

"You guys need to go downstairs in case they make the house tip again," he commanded them in a low voice. The initial fright from earlier was beginning to fade, and Harry felt the edge of what was definitely extreme fury taking over. "Make sure you are in a room where you can see all around you. Stay away from the walls. Don't go near the fireplace. And stay together. I'll be with you in a moment."

Aunt Petunia and Dudley just gaped at him, while Uncle Vernon mouthed soundlessly like a fish.

The man was probably going to need his voice, Harry realized. Especially with what Harry had in mind. He pointed his wand at his uncle's throat and muttered the countercurse. "Now go! And _stay quiet!" _ He turned into his room, leaving the three of them there.

He raced quickly around the haphazard mess that just yesterday was a spotless bedroom. He found his trunk lodged at an angle into the actual floor, where a loose floor board had once been but was now pulverized into splinters. The trunk itself seemed unharmed, however, but Harry didn't allow himself the feeling of relief. He began the search for his broom. His gut feeling was telling him to hurry, hurry – yet Harry got the impression that the Death Eaters weren't going to do anything just yet. They weren't part of a methodical military operation – they didn't just get things done, the Death Eaters enjoyed taunting their prey in the process. They would wait for their next move, they would enjoy nurturing that buildup of anxiety.

He found his broom; it had rolled harmlessly under the bed. He snatched it up, then quickly scanned the rest of his room for anything else. His eyes lighted upon Hedwig's cage – but he already had enough to carry. He would have to leave it behind. He gave it no further thought.

He then gazed upon the shattered remains of what had been the goldfish's temporary home – there was no doubt in his mind that the fish had been killed. He felt a wave of frustration. How was he going to find out where those messages came from now?

Harry dragged the trunk, broom tucked under his arm, to the door. All three of the Dursleys were still standing there in the dark.

"Why haven't you gone downstairs?" he demanded angrily. "We're supposed to be moving quickly!"

Uncle Vernon was fuming, and it had more to do with being forcibly muted by his less-than-favorite nephew.

"We _can't _go down the stairs, boy."

"Why?"

"Go take a look for yourself," he growled, teeth clenched, while jerking his head behind him.

Harry had no patience for this. Knowing that they were wasting valuable time, He shoved roughly past them without dropping either the trunk or the broom. He heard Dudley gasp with pain; the trunk must have banged into his foot as it was dragged past. Harry approached the top step and peered down.

"Damn."

His mouth had fallen open in disbelief. The traps above the staircase (which had once been a large cake platter, a number of coffee mugs, and a crystal pudding bowl) were now in shattered pieces that layered the carpeted steps. Unlike the ones on the top landing, which were still securely revolving over each door, these ones had been broken when the house had had its episode. But that was not what made Harry feel a wave of dismay settling into his bones. The very staircase itself had been ripped – as if grabbed by giant hands – into two separate chunks. The top section only lasted four steps; beyond that, there was a drop. The section with the last eight steps had collapsed upon itself and fallen sideways, a huge pile of sharp splinters punctured with nails. It blanketed the entry way, heavy with shadows and lit only by a tiny amount of light streaming through the front door. The damage extended into the walls, too – huge cracks as wide as a fist created fissures going from top to bottom. It was completely and utterly destroyed.

Even as the image sank in to his consciousness, something like annoyance bubbled through him. It was a shocking sight, but Harry knew better than the Dursleys. If he were a Muggle and not a wizard, then yes, this would be an obstacle. But the fact was, he _could _do magic. And he knew a spell that should fix the problem fairly easily.

He dropped the trunk and the broom on either side of him. Then he pulled his wand out again and directed it at the mess below.

"_Reparo!"_

Harry expected the bits of wood, carpet, and metal to immediately come flying back together in a fantastic display of magical prowess.

He was therefore quite taken aback when, instead, a faint silverish glow that he didn't recognize illuminated the wreckage for a split second – and then faded away, insignificant. The staircase remained in ruins.

Harry frowned and narrowed his eyes. He tried again, focusing even harder this time. "_Reparo!" _

Again, the rubble glowed silver – but everything was still in fragments when the glitter faded.

The frustration seeped like a heavy syrup into his veins.

_Well, _he thought. _This might be slowing us down after all. _

He couldn't understand why it wasn't working. He could only come to the conclusion that there was something extremely unusual about the incantation that had caused the damage in the first place, making repair impossible. This was a problem. A big problem. There was no way they could jump – not only was it rather high, but there was danger of being impaled on a nail or sharp strip of wood.

He looked back at the Dursleys. If Harry had been on his own, this still would be an easy obstacle to get past – he would just have to hop on his broom. But the Dursleys had a phobia of magic. This was not going to be easy. Harry let a groan tear through his throat. The last thing they needed was to delay!

"You're paying every cent it takes to repair that, boy," Uncle Vernon growled when Harry caught his eye. "This is coming out of _your _hide!"

Harry didn't respond.

How was he going to do this? Broom, levitation, Side-Along Apparition? Apparition would be ideal, but Harry didn't have his license to practice it yet, and he wasn't really sure how the side-along thing worked –

"Are you listening to me, boy?" Uncle Vernon roared. Again, Harry ignored him.

Aunt Petunia was whimpering, looking down at the debris below that was once her beautiful and spotless living room. Dudley just gaped silently, while staying far away from the edge.

Harry exhaled sharply; the urgency was making him twitchy. He supposed could take each Dursley down one-by-one on the back on his broom; that might merit less grumbles and hindrances on their part. Nevertheless it was going to be very troublesome.

"Look," he said bluntly, "I can get us all down, but you're not going to like it. I have my broom, and if you're all calm about it, I can –"

But he was suddenly, violently interrupted by a terribly familiar impact.

_WHAMM!_

Harry just barely managed to hold onto his balance and keep from pitching headfirst off into the sitting room below. The sensation of something large slamming into the house had come again. Dudley slipped backward and almost fell. Then floor began to rumble beneath him. The Dursleys screamed and drew away from the walls, which were beginning to twist menacingly again –

"Damn it," Harry cursed. The Death Eaters were initiating another attack; apparently they did not like waiting. With no time to think, Harry leapt on his broom, kicked off, and swooped down to the sitting room below, landing near the pile of rubble. He quickly got off the broom.

His relatives were gaping down at him in pure terror.

"Don't leave us!" Aunt Petunia pleaded. Dudley's white face peered down at Harry with a look of fearful astonishment, and Uncle Vernon crowed, "I knew it! The boy's a coward, he's ready to leave his own blood for dead, look at that!"

"God, I'm not leaving!" Harry shouted indignantly over the rising noise of the house twisting and wood crunching. "Now you have to – YOU HAVE TO GET REALLY CLOSE TOGETHER, OR THIS WON'T WORK!" The roar of the walls and foundation ripping was so loud Harry wasn't sure they would understand him. Indeed it seemed that they had not, for they were still standing apart from one another. The air became hazy as more cracks popped into the walls of the sitting room, releasing clouds of dust, and what knickknacks hadn't fallen from the mantel piece before were now jarred from their place to smash to the floor –

"NOW! GRAB ONTO EACH OTHER _NOW_! AND DO _NOT _LET GO!"

This time they heard; either that, or instinct drove them to do it, for each of the Dursleys immediately clung fearfully to one another to form one body.

Harry pointed his wand up at them and shouted: "ACCIO!"

At once all of their slippered feet lifted from the top landing, and they came flying through the air as one directly at Harry, who jumped aside just in time – they crashed into the couch that had been behind him, which was knocked backward by the force. They all toppled haphazardly onto the rug.

"Stay low!" Harry called back; he was busy Summoning his trunk down. It clattered heavily at his feet; immediately he had it open and was digging through his stuff, trying to peer through the heavy gloom of the room, while the house around him tried to self-destruct – his ears were flooded with a claxon-like sound as all the Unbreakable windows in the house were being stretched, the noise even more amplified by the darkness.

Finally he found what he was looking for – a fluid-like fabric brushed his fingertips and he yanked out a large silvery cloak. He slammed the lid of the trunk shut and made to dash over to the Dursleys with the cloak.

But right at that moment Number Four decided to pitch to its side again, only this time the other way – he lost his balance and fell forward, banging his knees hard on the side of what must have been the coffee table. He somehow managed to stay standing, but the cloak slipped from his hands and fluttered away; he didn't see where it went in the confusion. The floor creaked toward an unnatural angle; it was behaving like a badly balanced set of scales moving in slow motion.

Eyes watering with the sting, Harry struggled to orient himself, teetering on the brink of falling over. He bent his sore knees and slanted his body backward with the floor in a feeble attempt to stay upright as the angle inevitably increased, but gravity was forcing him to slide quickly across the carpet toward the wall opposite, where the fireplace was. He could feel the heat from the friction between the carpet and his bare feet. There were flickers of pain as little bits of broken glass from the mantelpiece sliced their way through his heels. Then the battle was lost, the slant of the house became too great, and his legs flew out from under him altogether. He landed hard on his backside. For a brief, almost obdurate moment, he tried to grasp at the carpet with his hands – his right one still clutched rigidly around his wand – but it was no use. Harry tumbled painfully into the metal doors of the closed grate, from which various unpleasant crunching noises came as the wall behind it was twirled about like a piece of soft candy.

He looked up just in time to see the dark shadow of his trunk tumbling through the air toward him – he impulsively jabbed his wand at it, and it was flung to the side, crashing raucously through the screen of the television on his right.

On Harry's left, all three Dursleys had toppled forward as well; the couch had fallen on top of them, pinning them into rough branches of the silk tree that was slumping against the wall. They were struggling in vain to push it off. At the same time, the dark mountain of rubble from the staircase was sliding menacingly toward them, though its descent was slowed by all the exposed nails that were digging into the carpet.

Aunt Petunia was screaming, Uncle Vernon bellowing, and Dudley yelping – the combined noise from them and from the house was enough to make Harry's ears ache as he struggled to pull himself up out of the grate. He felt unbearably helpless to this assault, the darkness pressing against his eyes made so much more impervious by the fear. Harry felt rather than saw the small piece of shattered wood as it impacted against him, digging into his shoulder, and with a jolt he thought maybe the wreckage of the stairs would fall on them after all – other small, decorative pieces of furniture were, indeed, smashing into the walls around him. A heavy end table slammed violently into the left side of the room, the coffee table was shuddering across the carpet, and a lamp rolled to collide with the base of the fireplace.

But at last, the terrible twisting and tilting of the house stopped. The rumbling around Harry ceased as the walls stopped warping. A strange, unpleasant sort of serenity undulated through the air as everything seemed to hover frighteningly at nearly a sixty angle – the gaping, night-sucking hole where the staircase used to be was looming nightmarishly above them – then the whole house began its descent back to the earth. Harry's stomach leapt into his throat as they fell, holding his breath, he poised himself for it – There was an earth-shaking crash of a landing that made Harry feel like he was being smothered, a very unpleasant sensation coursing from head to toe as though his skeleton were trying to push its way out of his body. The force of it caused him to be expelled from the grate, and he landed hard on his belly, facing the entry way. Unsettling sounds pierced the air as the house around him leveled once more, most disturbingly the ominous screeches of wood splintering up from the foundation.

As Harry gasped for breath, the sound of a lot of glass breaking reached his ears through the other racket; the china plate trap that had floated just above the front door, which must have survived the first attack, had swung in a sort of invisible bow during the plunge before crashing into the crevice between the wall and the ceiling. Harry just barely saw the jagged pieces fall, illuminated by the tiny glimmers of moonlight shining through the still-intact panes of the door and through the sitting room window, whose previously tightly-closed curtains had parted in the trouble.

The house was destroyed. A strange, unnerving silence fell around him, as if something was desperately absent.

His wand lay in front of him; he quickly wrapped his fingers around the handle. Fighting the urge to throw up from having the wind knocked out of him so hard, Harry struggled to stand. He swayed slightly. His head was spinning. Beneath his feet, the floor was unusually soft and seemed to have partially collapsed. He forced himself to regain his footing and immediately whispered, "_Lumos," _so he could see the full extent of the damage. Yet he was disoriented and didn't instantly register what he was seeing. His big toe jabbed into what might have been a nail or a splinter, and he carefully nudged it aside. He held his wand high, allowing the light to spread over the corner where his aunt, uncle, and Dudley lay. Millions of particles of dust glowed silver in the wandlight as they whisked wildly through the air.

Dudley was the first one Harry saw. He lay slumped over the upended couch, his striped pajama-clad backside in the air.

"Urrrggllchh."

He was groaning into the canvas stretched across the bottom of the sofa. Avoiding the strange depression in the middle of the floor, Harry stepped quietly toward him, using his toe to push aside the rubble littering the rug as nimbly as a cat would. He resisted the urge to cough or sneeze as the foreign dust threatened the back of his throat.

Harry stepped up to his cousin and gave him a speedy once-over with the light. He appeared okay, out cold though he was. He then shone the light behind the couch.

Aunt Petunia, like Dudley, appeared to be unconscious. Eyes closed, she lay flat on her back. A few inches away from her was Uncle Vernon, curled and clutching his right leg. The bone was very obviously broken. It was one of very few times that Harry ever saw his uncle with a white-pale face. The man was awake and sweating profusely, and seemed to be grinding his teeth with the effort not to make a sound. Like his wife, he was littered with the remnants of what used to be their prized home.

Harry leaned close to his cousin's ear and as loudly as he dared, hissed, "_Wake up!" _

There was no response. He gave Dudley a sharp prod in the rolls of his belly. Still, the boy did not move. Harry pointed his wand at Dudley's head and whispered, "_Ennervate!" _

He was plunged into darkness as the _Lumos _spell was cancelled. Immediately following was a sharp ripping sound as Dudley snapped to alertness; his elbow, having jerked from reflex, had put a hole in the canvas of the sofa.

"I don't wanna –" he gibbered stupidly and loudly, but his words were immediately muffled by the hand Harry clapped over his mouth. Harry lit the wand again.

"_No. Talking,"_ he hissed, illuminating his own face. Wide-eyed, Dudley looked bemusedly around the ravaged room. He blinked from the shock of the sight, then slowly nodded a very glum assent. Still Harry held his hand over his mouth to expound his point, letting go only when Dudley nodded a second, slightly more vigorous agreement. Harry eyed him narrowly, then moved away to work on his aunt and uncle.

He was stepping around the sofa when a loud, throaty voice tore through the darkness.

"_Awww_, _is wittle piggy Potter scaaawed of da big bad wolfie?_"

He jerked, wincing.

It was coming from outside. It was high-pitched, but it was feminine. Not Voldemort. Yet Harry had the sinking suspicion that he just might recognize that voice…

"_Come out, come ooouuut, little Potty!" _the voice crowed, drizzling through the walls._ "Or I'll huff and puff and blow your house down!"_

There was a spew of cackling laughter that followed, as if the speaker found herself to be very amusing. Inside, rage swiftly tied Harry's insides into knots. He definitely knew that voice. Oh yes, did he ever. His hands tightened painfully into fists.

There was a brief groan and the house bucked hard against Harry's feet again. He quickly braced himself for yet another assault, but the trembling ceased almost immediately. She was toying with them now.

Harry vaulted over the edge of the sofa and landed silently between his aunt and uncle.

"Uncle Vernon – hang on," he murmured breathlessly as he turned his full attention to his aunt instead. He kneeled quickly by her side. _Hurry!_

His aunt's face was turned away from him. The weighty, expensive end table, which used to call the space next to the armchair home, lay heavily across her midsection; it must have fallen on her during the chaos. Harry extinguished the wandlight once more.

"_Ennervate,"_ Harry muttered. He poised himself to shush her the moment she opened her eyes; she was bound to try to give him the earful of his life about the condition her precious sitting room was in now.

Only she didn't wake.

Aunt Petunia remained completely still. Harry gritted his teeth, impatient with the anxiety of knowing that there was a Death Eater only a few hundred feet away.

"_Ennervate!"_

Still she did not wake. What on Earth…the reviving charm usually worked almost immediately when used on unconscious individuals. Unless…

Harry hastily leaned over her, peering through the renewed darkness to look far more closely than before.

Her eyes were not completely closed after all; a sliver of pale iris still showed between the eyelids, though they gave no sign of being aware of the world. Yet her chest was slowly rising. She was alive.

"_Hurry, hurry, wittle Harry! Wolfie is getting hungry!" _ Guffaws shattered the night again. "_Just five more minutes, Mommy! Ha-HA! Tick tock, Potty!"_

Something banged on the door, and Harry jumped and then silently cursed himself for doing so.

He didn't know why _Ennervate _was not working, but he had no time to figure it out. He shoved the end table off Aunt Petunia; it landed with a clatter on her other side. He pointed his wand at Aunt Petunia's barely moving chest and hissed, "_Mobilicorpus_!"

Her body slowly lifted off the ground, undulating to hover upright. Her nightgown hung off her and her slippers fell one-by-one from her feet, leaving her toes a few inches above the carpet.

A gasp emanated from her mouth, and Harry saw her throat move slightly as she gulped down. A weak moan of pain bubbled over her lips.

Harry heard Uncle Vernon shift behind him. "Pe…Petunia?" he grunted through his own agony.

Harry willed the man not to move as he himself rose to his feet. Aunt Petunia remained unconscious despite her radical change in position, so Harry finally turned to his uncle.

"Don't you…dare use…that thing on me!" the man managed to snarl out as Harry approached.

"Shut. Up," Harry reminded him. Then he pointed his wand at Uncle Vernon's broken leg.

"_Ferula!"_

A splint and bandages conjured themselves out of the dusty air, binding the leg tightly.

"Sorry, but as you still can't run…" Much to Uncle Vernon's displeasure, he found himself being jerked magically into the air with a repeat of _Mobilicorpus. _Harry directed him to hover right next to Aunt Petunia.

He turned to face Dudley, who was gazing at the scene with wide-eyed terror. He was now sitting on the edge of the sofa frame.

"D-Don't you use that on me too!"

Dudley flinched as Harry lifted his wand, but Harry merely murmured, "_Accio cloak!" _

Out from the darkness it came swooping like a bat; Harry caught the Invisibility Cloak with his left hand. He held it tightly, feeling its unusual watery texture beneath his fingers. This had once been his father's…

"Here," he muttered. He held it out to Dudley. "Use it to cover your parents. It will be your job to push them to Mrs. Figg's house. They can't get there without you. Once you get there, tell her what has happened. Hopefully she will be able to contact someone for reinforcements."

Dudley eyed him suspiciously, not moving.

"_Take it!" _Harry pressed.

Slowly, the fabric slipped from his hands as Dudley took hold of it instead.

"Mrs. Figg…the batty old lady with all the cats? If we're going there, what are you going to do?"

Something from outside slammed noisily into the sitting room window. Dudley started so bad he slipped off the backside of the couch as a guttural, unearthly voice vibrated the glass. Harry stared around at it and froze; a white, sickly face was visible through the small parting of the curtain. It glared back at him with a milky, unseeing eye, and Harry suddenly felt like he had old milk curdling in his stomach as the realization hit – it wasn't just Death Eaters out there.

"What was that?" Uncle Vernon shouted. Hovering where he was, he was unable to see the figure just outside. "What made that sound?" Harry didn't bother telling him to keep his voice down this time.

"I…" He took a deep breath. He squeezed his eyes shut against the sight of the waxy face. Then he tried again.

"You don't want to know," he said firmly. "And as for what I'm going to do… I'm going to be the distraction for Bellatrix Lestrange."

Dudley gaped at him, but Harry was on the move. He squeezed past Dudley and carefully navigated his way through the forest of sharp splinters sticking up from the carpet. He pointedly did not look through the window again; he did not want to have to see them again; the knowledge of what he was about to face weighed too heavy on him. Yet as if he had become weary of being afraid, he no longer felt fear. Instead, he felt only numb as he passed the rubble of the staircase and stopped short of where the glass-littered doormat was. He had been allowed ample time; he understood this. Too much time. Apparently those in charge had no worries of him finding a way to escape.

Harry rested his left hand against the door. He closed his eyes. It hit him hard – more than anything, he wished he still had his parents. Someone to be the adult for him in these situations. But the fact was, Harry was to be of age in just a day. There was no hiding in childhood anymore. It was his responsibility to get everyone out of this alive, and his alone… Breathing deep, he opened his eyes. And then, with a sweep of his wand, he blasted the door wide open to whatever it was that was awaiting him.


End file.
